Poetry in the Time of AI: An Interview with Dundalk singer-songwriter David Keenan

“I was told long ago that you’d learn more on a building site than you would in school…”

As the opening lines from David Keenan’s latest single “El Paso” are belted out over the captivated crowd packing the hallowed halls of Galway’s Roisin Dubh, a line from the Coen brothers’ portrait-of-a-folk-artist Inside Llewyn Davis ran circles in mind: ‘If it was never new, and it never gets old – then it’s a folk song’.

Those immersed in Ireland’s Indie scene will recognize that Keenan’s latest hit off his 2023 EP Crude Boyo, “El Paso”, is just that – not quite new, not quite old, but rather, an earworm whose presence somehow managed to precede Keenan’s very arrival to the scene.

Written in the teenage-pipe-dream-phase of Keenan’s career, ‘El Paso’ was almost instantly recognized as an unofficial local anthem upon conception. The track’s fifteen-year journey from the its humble pub and pavement debut to its wider, official March 2023 release on his sixth EP Crude Boyo, marked by a national debut performance on the Late Late Show, has been eventful, to say the least.

"I wrote it when I was about 14 years of age, so it must be from around…2008.’ Keenan recalls during a soundcheck break. His eyes drift somewhere between the skylight in Roisin Dubh’s vacant smoking area and the canopy of clouds over Galway City’s Westend as he reflects on his tempestuous relationship with the oldest track in his repertoire.

"I didn't want to be pigeonholed as the “El Paso Guy”,’ Keenan admits earnestly, reflecting on the conundrum of early viral fame, and the dangers of becoming a one-click-wonder – potential career quicksand for musicians in the digital age. In Keenan’s case, it was a 2014 taxi-seat performance of

‘El Paso’ which spread from local-buzz to national-sensation like wildfire, eventually landing him on RTE’s Morning Show. The viral moment was very much a double-edged sword – both offering Keenan instant access to a wide audience, while simultaneously threatening a short stint in the limelight – an alluring offer that could paralyze his creative ambitions as an artist.

"I wanted to make different records – albums that I found interesting. And so I did… But people kept the song alive when I turned my back on it.’ Keenan says, acknowledging his struggle to embrace the song that helped boost him up onto Ireland’s mainstage.

"The Irish diaspora abroad showed me that “El Paso” has become a universal hometown song for any Irish person. The messages that I get sent, and people I've met at gigs all around the world… El Paso is their hometown. It's a state of mind. ‘Take me back’, to a place where you feel like it's grating on you. So where's your El Paso – the ‘subjective El Paso’? I think that’s why people take to the song."

While El Paso’s nostalgic hometown sentiment certainly bares universal appeal, Keenan acknowledges that Dundalk has also very much claimed it as its own – and rightly so.

A few short weeks after releasing the track’s music video, Dundalk Football Club started a new tradition of playing it loud and proud for fans before every home match.

The music video opens with footage of a fresh-faced, tracksuit-clad teenaged Keenan performing the tune in a pub, before cutting to contemporary-Keenan proudly sporting the experience that grew parallelly with the lifespan of the song itself, serenading an empty Oriel Park, and various areas of Dundalk. The video itself perfectly encapsulates Keenan’s odyssey as an artist, and his creative first-born’s journey to Oriel Park immortality.

El Paso is just part of Keenan’s Crude mission to ‘get back to the pavement’ and rediscover the raw source of his artistic inspiration.

"With Crude, I felt like I cleared out the house… It was literally clearing out and tidying in my head, tidying my imagination, putting things in some order and stripping everything back so I could get some clarity again; so I could rewild.’ He continues, ‘Part of clearing house and cleaning house was me saying: What about “El Paso”? This is the song that actually gave me kind of a leg up."

With tracks like ‘God is a Magpie’, ‘Don’t Speak Ill of the Dead’, and ‘On Michael Street’, it’s hard to ignore the unapologetically raw, unfiltered, home studio-feel that David Keenan’s latest project parades. In a world of over-produced, bite-sized hooks whose sole ambition is a chance at soundtracking a 30-second video curated for a brief moment of memedom, it’s refreshing to sit back and bask in Crude’s bold and bare sound that draws you into Keenan’s intimate session room for each track’s spin.

"To some people, that's not to their taste. And it might sound this-that-and-the-other to somebody else, but to me it is akin to poetry,’ David says of the Crude projects.

"You're not going to polish up and varnish a line because you wanted to land a bit softer to the person's ear. I want to invoke an emotional response from people. And so Crude had to be believable… every time I listen to it, I don't know what to expect because it's not formulaic."

Despite taking some time to reflect and resuscitate pieces from his past, Keenan shows no signs of slowing down as he continues carrying the Indie scene’s torch into the future. His artistic sights are firmly fixed on the present, and the threats posed on the creative world by encroaching digital forces.
His upcoming single, ‘Tick Tock’ is due to be released on June 2nd, and Luddite-sympathizing fans will be happy to learn that Keenan pulls no punches in his self-described ‘thinly veiled assault on a certain social media platform… named TikTok."

Its opening lines do not disappoint: “Tick tock, molest your mind, drip-drips of dopamine, it's a study in self harm, with a saturated screen.”

In top-notch Keenan fashion, he bites back at the technological jailers who have boxed us into a corner, while simultaneously holding up a black-mirror for much needed collective reflection.

Keenan elaborates, "It's dangerous, it's lawless – overall, I just think it's a damaging thing. And the music industry is shaped around that now. If you get signed, a record label will tell you to focus on your TikTok instead of writing songs that are an expression of the soul. Songs are an expression of the soul.

"Kids should be told to focus on that instead of singing covers on TikTok. So the new single is really a comment on brain-drain and the apathy that comes along with brain-drain, which is dangerous, debilitating thing."

Perhaps this will be the anthem for individuality in the time of group-think; for poetry in the time of AI. Only time will tell.

David Keenan will be embarking on a tour of the UK on June 6, 2023, and will be performing his biggest Irish event to date at the National Concert Hall in Dublin on September 13, 2023.

His latest single ‘Tick Tock’ is due to be released June 2.